I am about to work on my first Asterisk setup. I am researching and testing at home and think I have a pretty good handle on it but wanted to throw this out for some feedback.

Here are the specs - office has 8 incoming POTS lines with 14 extensions in the office. I am looking at putting together a Xeon based server with 8GB or RAM and 1TB of storage (yes, I know overkill, but the cost of hardware it seems silly to limit it). I will install Asterisk with FreePBX on this server.

I am going to get the Digium 1A8B03F 8 port analog board to bring the 8 incoming copper lines into the Asterisk server. To complete the hardware I plan on getting the Cisco SPA 508G (x14) phone and a 24 port Cisco PoE Switch to connect these phones into.

Do I need to worry about the type of router used at the location? They have a provider for the phone lines themselves (CenturyLink) and a different internet provider (cable by CableOne). The internet connection is not always reliable which is why we are keeping the copper lines for the phones themselves.

Have I overlooked anything? Are there other questions I should be asking and researching? The one item I do need to find out tomorrow is if all the extension locations actually have a wired ethernet port available, I MIGHT have to resort to older phones (which then would require another or more capable Digium card with FXO & FXS ports available?)

Thanks for any and all feedback and suggestions. We only learn sometimes by having a project like this that we can actually implement, but having access to a forum like this makes it a little easier to venture into new territory. I've worked on several different phone systems (and moved a few systems between offices for clients) but this will be my first putting the hardware together and installing it. And also my first with Asterisk (other systems were Nortel, DEC types)

They already have another company that attempted to get a system running with other hardware and have had nothing but problems. That company informed them they will no longer be supporting them, but never got the system working in the first place and they will be taking that hardware out.

You might want to look at the price for a telco T1 PRI instead, although keeping a POTS line for emergencies, alarms, etc. makes sense, too. And a 2 port T1 card, with one port connected to a channel bank, would probably let you support the existing analog phones and their wiring. Then you could migrate to SIP phones gradually, instead of ripping everything out.

Do I need to worry about the type of router used at the location?

Not if all the phone calls come in on analog lines.

The internet connection is not always reliable

If you add a DSL connection, then a device that can handle 2 WAN links would help, eg. pfSense appliance.